The late Bruce Kirby was one of the most influential yacht designers of the 20th century. Though known primarily for the Laser, his design career lasted over 40 years in two countries and spanned a ra...
When Tim Severin died at 80 in December 2020, I thought, “I know that name. He wrote stories about the sea.” The particular book that came to mind was this one, The Brendan Voyage, which recounts an A...
This classic nautical book is aimed squarely at Good Old Boat readers, despite being written decades before Good Old Boat magazine came to be. The Boat Who Wouldn’t Float is not so much a tale of man ...
During these COVID-19 days of isolation, this 17,000-mile voyage by a father and son on a 25-foot engineless sloop, has the effect of making our stay-at-home confinement seem downright luxurious in co...
Home From Distant Seas is the final volume in James Baldwin’s Distant Seas trilogy, documenting the completion of his 13-year circumnavigation aboard Atom, his 1963 28-foot Pearson Triton. We follow B...
…and Two More Performance Cruisers. Issue 138: May/June 2021 I assumed the Passport 42 would be a Bob Perry design, an assumption further reinforced when I saw she had a Valiant 40-style canoe s...
Checking All the Boxes Issue 138: May/June 2021 After only a few dates, Scott Voltz and Connie Bunyer knew two things: They liked each other, and they liked sailing. Well…Scott knew he loved sailing; ...
As I write this review, I am a few weeks into a winter move to the Maine coast. The picture window to my right is dark at 4 pm, and the house shivers under a squirrely wind gusting over the island tha...
To the experienced sailors out there who have read the addictive narratives of Cook, Ross, Amundsen, and Shackleton, and who have dreamed of their own voyage to extreme latitudes, your book has been w...
Sundowners in paradise? Check. Uncertainty? Check. Doubt? Check. Relationship drama? Check. Check. Check. Plunge is an apt title for this cruising narrative as the author doesn’t simply dribble ...
This book, aptly subtitled, “Fiberglass Boats and the Men Who Made Them,” is the bible of the fiberglass boatbuilding industry. And Dan Spurr is the prophet to write it. Dan is Good Old Boat magazine’...
A trio of Pearson 36-1 owners compares notes on their boats, refits, and wide-ranging sailing. Issue 137: March/April 2021 In 1972, Pearson Yachts began producing the P36-1, designed by William Shaw. ...
In the world of sailing vloggers, few crews are better known than the Delos crew. They have sailed around the world with their cameras rolling and have a loyal tribe of followers for every nautical mi...
As the title makes clear, this is a book of 27 unforgettable stories. Having just read this book, I realize I’ve already forgotten most of them. Then again, my rusty old brain does not remember things...
…and Two More CCA-Onspired Classics Issue 137: March/April 2021 Carl Alberg developed a design aesthetic based on the Cruising Club of America (CCA) yachts of the 1950s and ’60s, and he never re...
A Classic Full-Keel Beauty Issue 137: March/April 2021 Laurie Knight’s lifelong dream has been to own and sail her own boat, something she hopes all women will realize isn’t as hard as it looks and is...
This 1970s family cruiser offers a fair turn of speed Pearson Yachts was one of the most respected builders during its long run from 1956 to 1988 or thereabouts (under ownership by an investment firm,...
It’s amazing to think that no scholars atop the masthead of Melville studies had thought until now to undertake the systematic cataloging of the ways in which Moby-Dick reflects the 19th century mind ...
What do you do when you’ve prepared for a single-handed around-the-world sailboat competition, have a great 40-foot high-performance boat ready to go… and then the race is called off? Go. That’s what ...
Rarely do I really enjoy a cruising memoir that melds a family story with descriptions of white-knuckled adventure. I also tend to identify with solo sailors or the male half of a cruising couple, bei...
Protagonist Emmeline “Em” Ridge is a boat delivery captain of limited experience. Newly widowed, her husband having died in a kayak accident, she lives on a tidal island just east of Portland, Maine, ...
Author and Olympic sailor Carol Newman Cronin’s fourth novel, Ferry to Cooperation Island, takes readers to a fictional setting in Rhode Island Sound between the real Block Island and Newport, where t...
This is the perfect book for these times. When you can’t get out cruising on your own boat (very far, anyway), voyage logs like this one help to cure stuck-on-land blues. The title doesn’t lie: it’s t...
…and Two More Lift-Keel Performers Issue 135: Nov/Dec 2020 Everyone knows that deep draft improves sailing performance but restricts cruising options. The ability to reduce draft would certainly...
Edson Marine clearly has an eye for what the market needs, adding to its products a garden hose connector fitting made by Banjo, one of the best-known manufacturers of this style of fitting. It’s an i...
In my experience, quick-release fire extinguisher mounting clasps are cheaply made and easily broken. Bungee cord can solve part of this problem, but it eliminates any quick-release capabilities. A be...
“We are inching toward the middle of nowhere,” reads an entry in Michael’s log of the cruise of Juliet, a CSY 44 sailboat that is carrying the Partlow family of four through the San Blas Islands of Pa...
Laura S. Wharton’s debut novel The Pirate’s Bastard, is set in colonial America in the first half of the 18th Century. This was an exciting place, especially for a young, ambitious man like Edward Mar...
I wonder how many sailors secretly long for a relationship with, or owning or at least experiencing, a wooden boat. Though most sailboat owners nurture fiberglass craft, my guess is that deep down ins...
Steering chains lurk unloved, out of sight, in one of the toughest environments on the boat, a constantly damp bilge. And steering failure ranks near the top of the list of reasons why boats are aband...
